THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM 



OF THE 



UNITED STATES. 






AN 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS, 



Delivered July 27, 1859. 






/ cy 



— J.4 LOOMS, LL. D., 

PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY AT L.EWISBURG. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
WM. S. YOUNG, PRINTER, FRANKLIN BUILDINGS, SIXTH ST. BELOW ARCH 

1860. 



^> 



Lewisburg, December 10th, 1859. 

Dr. Looms, 

Dear Sir: 

The undersigned, believing that the publication of your 
Inaugural Address on the "Collegiate System of the United States," deliv- 
ered in Commencement Hall, July 21th, 1859, would promote the interests 
of Education and of this University, respectfully request the same for pub- 
lication. 

THOMAS WATTSON, 
J. P. CROZER, 
J. WHEATON SMITH, 
A. K. BELL, 
T. F. CURTIS, 
CHARLES S. JAMES, 
H. J. MULFORD, 
GEORGE R. BLISS. 



Lewisburg, December 12^,1859. 



Gentlemen . 



disposal. 



To 



In accordance with your request, I submit the Address to your 



J. R. LOOMIS. 



THOMAS WATTSON, ESQ., 
J. P. CROZER, ESQ., 
REV. J. WHEATON SMITH, 
REV. A. K. BELL, 
PROF. T. F. CURTIS, 
PROF. C. S. JAMES, 
H. J. MULFORD, ESQ., 
PROF. G. R. BLISS. 



ADDRESS. 



The present occasion seems not an inappropriate one for 
considering, in some of its aspects, the Collegiate System of 
the United States. 

It originated not in educational theories, nor in great 
schemes for the future, but in a present and urgent neces- 
sity. The early colonists of this continent were men of 
sufficient cultivation and discernment to see almost at once 
that the education of their young people must be provided 
for, and provided for among themselves. If there was an 
early and somewhat exclusive regard to the necessities of 
clerical culture, the motives to early emigration and the- 
character of the first colonists will sufficiently account for it, 
and still leave the full impression that the first collegiate 
establishments were intended to meet precisely the educa- 
tional wants of the time. 

As new colonies were founded, settlements extended, and 
population increased, while facilities for travelling and com- 
munication were imperfect, new institutions came into ex- 
istence in almost all respects similar to those first established. 



6 THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 

And thus the multiplication of collegiate establishments be- 
came, at an early day, a marked feature in our social system. 

I shall not notice now the characteristics of these estab- 
lishments, but simply observe that there have not been 
wanting innovators, who have attacked them as antiquated, 
as useless, as pernicious and immoral, and who have pro- 
posed to re-model them, by introducing in turn into them 
almost every conceivable new element, and by casting out 
almost all that they contained. They have, however, re- 
mained essentially the same, modified without revolution by 
the timely introduction of whatever experience and the pro- 
gress of knowledge has indicated as desirable. But all of 
the essential innovations have flourished only their short 
day and disappeared. 

Whatever has stood the test of long experience and se- 
vere ordeal we would not willingly relinquish. 

Every true scholar desires to see American culture at- 
tain a higher level than it now occupies. This desire has 
found expression in efforts to establish Institutions of a 
higher grade than colleges, or to increase largely the amount 
of preparatory requisition, or to add one year or more to the 
term of collegiate pupilage. 

We sympathize most heartily in this high and noble de 
sire, and cannot doubt that the time will come and is rapidly 
approaching, when the demand for enlarged facilities in 
mental and aesthetic culture will justify some well digested 
plan to furnish them. But while this may be desirable, and 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 



while the educators should be quick to see such indications, 
earnest to encourage them, and foremost in measures to meet 
all such demands, it is yet important that no such projects 
should be entered upon to become ignominious failures. If 
educators are to lead, they are also to be led. If they should 
project the scheme for such higher culture, and in a limited 
sense create the demand for it, they should also be restrained 
from projecting such scheme until the public mind is so far 
impressed with its importance, that when it is fairly entered 
upon, this impression in the public mind shall ripen some- 
what rapidly into a uniform and permanent appreciation and 
patronage. 

Whenever such demand shall exist, it will be because 
there are many who, having enjoyed the opportunities for 
liberal culture which our collegiate system furnishes, desire 
enlarged opportunities, and are willing to forego the emolu- 
ments and the urgent solicitations of professional preferment, 
to a later period in life. 

The collegiate system, therefore, as now established in the 
United States, including substantially its present course of 
studies and uncentralized character, is not likely soon to give 
place to fewer Institutions, more centrally situated, more 
abundantly endowed, and furnishing and requiring a fuller 
range of academic training. We propose to consider briefly, 
then, the adaptation of our collegiate system, as now organ- 
ized, to the condition of the American people. 

The peculiarities of our people, therefore, first require a 
passing notice. 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 



If we have a career before us of high importance, it is be- 
cause there is something in our character as a people worthy 
of becoming the inheritance of humanity, and capable of 
self-sustentation and diffusion in the world. Wherever the 
Mohamedans conquered, they reorganized society. They 
had a force of character which led and controlled mind. The 
Scandinavian hordes overran Europe, but they gave it a new 
life. Spain, on the contrary, conquered America, but their 
conquests were failures. The Spanish- American States are 
now more Indian than Spanish. We believe that the Ame- 
rican character has force enough to extend itself, and that 
it has, with suitable culture, excellencies enough to make 
such extension desirable. 

In what does its peculiarity, regarded as a force and an 
excellence, consist 1 I should embody it all in one word — 
Individuality. 

The origin of all of the best nations of the present day 
has necessarily precluded such individuality, and has intro- 
duced a relation of dependence. They are the result of con- 
quest, involving first the relation of subaltern and superior, 
and secondly, the relation of victor and vanquished. Such 
is the condition of Europe, and it must continue to be, it 
would seem, perpetually, unless it may ultimately yield to 
the softening influences of time and the force of some great, 
successful and long continued experiment of equality and 
individuality. 

From these fetters we are free. Observe how we have 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 9 

been guarded from the development of any of these distinc- 
tions which involve dependence. The country was not taken 
possession of by conquest. It was by immigration. There 
were therefore no men who could claim the soil and parcel 
it out by feudal tenure ; none upon whom special honors 
would naturally fall; none upon whom special responsibili- 
ties would rest; none whose right it was to command, and 
none who would feel any obligation to obey. The most ob- 
vious ground of social distinctions in the old world, and that 
which has had more influence and more abiding influence 
than any other, we were absolutely free from. 

If, therefore, the original inhabitants had remained as an 
essential portion of the population, the broad distinction of 
classes could not have existed as in those countries where 
the original inhabitants are a conquered people. But, as if 
to remove all possibility of such distinctions here, the abo- 
rigines are likely to totally disappear. I know of no parallel 
to this in human history. To one small conquering people 
an utter extermination of their enemies was commanded, 
but it was never effected. The subjugated nation has al- 
ways constituted the bulk of the population. Nor does 
there seem to be another place on the earth capable of co- 
lonization, where the race already there, will not in all fu- 
ture time constitute an integrant part of the colony or na- 
tion. The North American Indian is the one only peculiar 
race, which by an invariable law recedes, and recedes by di- 
minution, before the face of the European pioneer. There 



10 THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 

is neither deterioration of European character by absorp- 
tion, nor the institution of a subordinate class by their con- 
tinuance as a distinct people among us. 

If we now pass from the circumstances which have pro- 
moted the formation of permanent social distinctions, to see 
what cast of character this one grade was likely to have, we 
shall expect to find men of earnest purpose. The colonists 
were not the rabble of the countries from which they came. 
The fact that they were not, was the reason of their coming. 
If they had been the unthinking mass, they could have re- 
mained in the land of their birth. The reason why they 
could not, was, that they had minds and consciences. Such 
colonists would bring with them their intelligence, their re- 
ligion, their industrious habits; and they would most cer- 
tainly leave behind whatever had prominently contributed 
to drive them from their former homes ; that is, they would 
leave an hereditary aristocracy, a state church, a king, and 
the laws of entailment and primogeniture. 

The colonies became an independent nation at a time, 
and in a way most promotive of a peculiar and national 
character. If the struggle had been earlier, it would have 
been unsuccessful. If it had been later, the colonists would 
have become too much assimilated to the ideas and govern- 
ment of the mother country. The early colonial condition 
of independence of each other, made it necessary, wherever a 
union should be formed, that all local preferences, and par- 
ticularly for any religious establishment, should be waived. 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 11 

The great extent of territory, diversities of character, some- 
what of colonial antipathies, and strong sectional interests, 
made it necessary that the administrative department of the 
government should be energetic and powerful. 

Thus it was that every loose appendage of character which 
could have been brought from other countries, was at the 
earliest possible period crushed out, and only character it- 
self, the most self-reliant and active, remained. 

It is also to be observed that, notwithstanding the large 
influx of foreigners of the most desperate character, yet 
another class, and one which constitutes no small part of this 
immigration, has consisted either of those whose enlightened 
views rendered them not at home, and perhaps hardly safe, 
in their own country, or it has consisted of those in less 
commanding positions, but of sufficient energy and fore- 
thought to seek opportunities for independence which, in 
their own country, they could never have hoped for. Thus 
it has happened in the providence of God that a consider- 
able part of the immigrants from European nations have, 
without any human interposition, been very carefully culled 
out of the great body of human life there, and that the se- 
lection, while it has not taken those whose absence would 
be most regretted there, because it has taken those whose 
characters were least congenial with existing institutions 
there, has taken those who are most to be desired here, be- 
cause they are those who most readily appreciate the cha- 
racter of our Institutions and most readily conform to them. 



12 THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 

Thus I think it will be seen that there has been, in the 
circumstances which operated in bringing such men as 
founded these colonies, and such men as have constituted 
our more recent accessions, a peculiar guidance, not that of 
human council, but of a more extended forethought. The 
result has already been a great nation, possessing unexam- 
pled energy and self-reliance, a disposition to gather all that 
was good from the countries which they had left, but with- 
out any blind attachment to them. They were not a ho- 
mogeneous people, merely transferred to a new locality, but 
they were so far heterogeneous as to make it necessary that 
the fabric of our social system should be reconstructed, with 
just enough preponderance of population from the English 
stock to make it certain that, without anything of servile 
imitation, the best parts of the freest European nation would 
be re-established here. 

But this work of reconstruction, this process of digestive 
transformation, is yet hardly begun, though it is, I trust, to 
give to the world a new national type in its form and life, 
one body and one spirit, more symmetrical, more efficient, 
more conducive to human progress and human happiness, 
than has ever yet existed. How long this elemental condi- 
tion is to continue, it may be unwise even to conjecture. 
The vast extent of our unoccupied territory, its boundless 
fertility, our great schemes of wealth, our vast network of 
railroads and canals, while they are sources of greatness and 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM 



union and power, have thus far tended rather to separate 
than to cement. 

Geologists have sometimes occupied themselves in de- 
ducing, from the present structure and condition of the earth, 
the condition in which it existed in its early periods, while 
yet it was without form and void. And they tell us of the 
existence of those repulsive agencies which overcame the 
cohesive and gravitating forces, and maintained for ages an 
elastic, unsubstantial and chaotic state. And yet this cha- 
otic state was the necessary antecedent to the wise and be- 
neficent arrangement of the materials in the present con- 
stitution of our globe, and was an essential part of the 
eternal plan of that Spirit which then brooded over the dark 
abyss. 

Such is to a great degree the condition of the people of 
this country. The cohesive forces are sufficient. We are 
plastic enough in our natures. But, thus far, there have been 
counteracting agencies. All is, no doubt, wisely planned. 
And when we do become a compacted whole, one people, as 
well as one nation, we shall see why we were kept so long- 
in an elemental state. But the fact that claims our atten- 
tion now is, that we are in this state of separateness. Every 
man stands alone. 

A little reflection will convince any one that this indi- 
viduality, or rather individualism, is a sort of key note to 
human action as it appears among us. Thus we find, in the 
business community, a pushing, independent energy, which, 



14 THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 

if it does not interfere with the rights of others, yet pays very 
little attention to them, a self-reliant, self-supporting disre- 
gard of precedent, of ordinary methods, an inventiveness, 
the power of devising, as if we were in a world without an- 
tecedents. 

And hence, that almost comical readiness of all men for 
all places, the confident assurance of our people that what 
any man ever has done they can themselves do, and are 
qualified to do it ; or if they are not qualified, they can very 
soon become so. 

A man may have been engaged in any laudable pursuit, 
and been fully successful in it, — but if a more lucrative, or 
more honorable, or less tasking pursuit presents itself, he 
can abandon former expenditure, or experience, or influ- 
ence, without a struggle or a misgiving, to enter upon the 
pursuit of a higher promise. 

This kind of broad-based, self-supporting egoism evi- 
dently induces the very general ignoring of all gradations in 
society. Certainly no man has any superiors, and it is but 
just to say that the idea of inferiority has but little promi- 
nence among us. Socially, we are equals to an extent else- 
where unknown. Politically, we are all sovereigns. 

The past does not satisfy us. Precedents are abandoned 
even where precedents are the most authoritative. We 
tamper with legislation as if the antiquity of a law were a 
reason for its abrogation. We love to experiment. We 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 15 

commit ourselves to untried schemes, because they are un- 
tried. 

Our individuality is also seen in the absence of those ties 
by which classes are elsewhere united. We have no clan- 
ship. Even family ties are weak. The word cousin ex- 
presses, with us, a very distant relationship, and there are 
very few who can trace back their genealogy more than two 
or three generations. So completely does each individual 
concentrate his all in his present self. 

It is very much the same in religious matters. To form 
a new religious sect is really a very easy matter. There 
are men always ready to raise a new standard, and there 
are always enough to range themselves by the side of it. 
And yet there is more of diversity of opinion in each sect 
among us than anywhere else. 

For the same reason no extensive religious organization 
can feel any confidence of perpetuity. Comparatively slight 
disagreements result in dissolution. The organizations for 
religious benevolence which were once national, have all 
become divided, and many of them redivided and subdivided. 
With many recognized grounds of union, the larger and 
even the local and neighborhood associations easily fall 
asunder. 

The voluntary support of the institutions of religion 
among us is equally characteristic of us, and of this separate 
and individual force by which our people are governed. 
They contribute more than any other people, but they will 



16 THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 

not do it by force of law, nor by any other force than their 
individual sense of ability and obligation. 

This want of coherence no doubt exists, but it does not 
prove, nor do we believe that it results from, the elements 
of character to which it has been attributed. It has been 
said that we are anti-social, that we are opinionative, that 
we are ill-natured, hard to please, scarcely fitted for anything 
but to find fault. 

It is not surprising that, from the facts, such inferences 
have been drawn, and yet we think that all of the facts may 
be regarded more truthfully as the outgoing of independent 
thought, and the absence of such extended and liberal cul- 
ture as would give somewhat of affinity to original thinking 
and untrammeled expression of thought. It results, in a 
word, from the individuality of American character, and the 
absence of a homogeneous culture. 

Reviewing for a moment what has now been said: In the 
first place, we sprang from an immigration of thinking and 
educated men. Secondly,. no systems were brought to this 
country, as if we were a transplanted nation, and everything 
tended to prevent the formation of permanent social dis- 
tinction, and to the introduction of whatever had been found 
objectionable in other countries. Thirdly, all of the de- 
velopments in this country have tended to establish a feel- 
ing of independence of government and independence of 
each other, and to awaken a high degree of activity in every 
mind. 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 17 

The great peculiarity with us then is, not our improve- 
ment, but the favorable conditions for our becoming im- 
proved, beyond what is elsewhere enjoyed. We have almost 
as many persons capable of culture, and ready to receive it, 
and free from obstacles to its being imparted and being 
used, as there are persons of a suitable age for such culture 
in the length and breadth of our land. 

To this point we have arrived; and it is now our object 
to exhibit the Collegiate System of this country as adapted 
to reach, to a very considerable extent, the masses of the 
country in this respect, and to become the means of that 
homogeneousness of development which they require. 

The influences which are to produce this result, if it ever 
is produced, must be infinitely varied. No great social 
change can be the result of a single cause. What we claim 
for the Collegiate System is, that it is a power among us, 
capable of reaching, and to a great extent moulding this 
great mass of plastic life of which we have spoken. Our 
grounds for entertaining these hopes of the system are, that 
it furnishes, 

I. A culture that reaches the general character, and, 

II. Instruction that embraces the elements of human 
knowledge, and, 

III. That this culture and instruction may reach more or 
less directly the entire people. 

I. We speak then in the first place of its culture. 
It is not beyond our scope to refer in a word to those 
2 



18 THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 

less recognized elements of a common culture which the 
college furnishes; the closeness of association ; the ceaseless 
attrition of active and contiguous minds; the generous ri- 
valries ; the genuine friendship combined with the strong 
antagonism of interest; the thorough democracy of the 
campus and the debating hall; the merciless kindness of 
some elbow censor; sometimes the rough outgush of bois- 
terous passion ; the never-ceasing discussion ; the criticism ; 
the pun; the fun; the total of student-life in college. 

But we must pass these incidental matters, for we have 
only time to speak of that which has been deliberately pur- 
posed. It is one of the most prevalent ideas, and yet one 
of the most erroneous, that our collegiate system ought to, 
and does, aim mainly to communicate knowledge. Our aim 
is rather to educate than to teach. The terms by which we 
express the appropriate work of literary Institutions, are 
sufficiently definite. If we call it education, then it is the 
drawing out of the mind, giving it direction, activity, scope. 
If we call it training, then it is subjecting it to orderly and 
determinate action, as a vine is trained to a chosen direction 
by the gardener; or as a military company is trained to exacti- 
tude of evolution. If we call it discipline, then it is that 
process by which one becomes a disciple ; that is, the process 
by which he comes to have such conformity of mind to that 
of a teacher as to be an exponent of the teacher's modes and 
views. If we call it culture, then we mean such working 
over and preparation of the mind for its future duties that 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 19 

it is fitly compared to those labors by which uncultivated 
land is brought into a condition of greatest productiveness. 
And these terms express correctly the great end which the 
collegiate system proposes to accomplish. We do not un- 
derrate the value of the knowledge which it communicates. 
But if we must sacrifice one in order to retain the other, 
we would hold fast to the culture and trust to subsequent 
opportunities for obtaining knowledge. 

It is appropriate to remark in this place that such culture 
is specially fitted for our condition. There is less with us 
than elsewhere to force the mind into particular channels. 
Other people have much to give shape, uniform shape, to 
character before the process of intentional culture com- 
mences. We have none of these things, certainly, none so 
obvious, and well defined, that the young mind at once sees 
and acts upon them, none that are not often and rudely dis- 
regarded. 

Other countries have an established religion. And this, 
with all its evils, gives somewhat of uniformity to early de- 
velopment and mental character. With us, not only all 
forms of religion, but religion itself, has influence only for 
its intrinsic value. We regard it only as it is a matter of 
judgment or experience. Elsewhere it is an honored thing. 
It commands respect for its antiquity, for its imposing forms, 
for its necessity to position and preferment. 

Other nations all have a venerated history. Every spot 
has its legend. Every family has its genealogy. Every 



20 THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 

prominent point has its abbey in ruins, or its castle, renowned 
in former days, or its cathedral, or perhaps its oak that once 
preserved a monarch's life. The memories of other days 
make these places sacred, and these places together make 
the country. We have no history of this revered character. 
We have the elements of it, which will constitute such a 
history one or two centuries later. They inspire but little 
reverence now. We have a Plymouth Rock, and a Roger 
Williams Rock, but they are almost forgotten. We have 
the homes of the historic muse and of genius in fiction and 
in song, but they have not yet become the Abbotsford or 
Avon of other lands. Possibly we have some barefooted 
mountain maids, but no one has yet been immortalized as 
our " Lady of the Lake." We have our battle-fields, the 
theatres of patriotism and valor which have never been sur- 
passed, but they are only an inheritance to be venerated by 
a coming age. We have the shrine of the worthiest man of 
historic time, but the sensitive American citizen blushes to 
remember it. Pass it unnamed. It will be cherished by- 
and-by. We have had statesmen whose names will go down 
to future ages as hallowed names. But they are passing 
through a fiery ordeal now, and the names of Adams and 
Jefferson and others of equal worth of a later date, are about 
as likely to be treated with disrespect as honor. 

We, therefore, of all people, rn/ist need in our educational 
system, something to take hold of the mind and give it 
shape. And this pliant state, this unformed condition of 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 21 

mind, furnishes ground to expect that the culture furnished 
will develop in some healthful degree a uniformity of mental 
character. 

Consider more minutely in what this culture consists. 

Young men come into college with minds highly active, 
though but little subject to control. College life gives that 
control. The careful adjustment of studies to hours will 
admit of no easy indolence or merely of activity as inclina- 
tion prompts, but everything must be done at its time. 
Each duty must be performed then, or there will speedily 
result confusion and discouragement and degradation. In 
these habits of promptness important interests are involved, 
which will not allow the duties of any hour to be put off to 
that portion of duration which none of our calendars have 
found a place for, a convenient time. 

This promptness is not subjection to a system of arbitrary 
rules. It is mental effort, tasking the powers. The mind 
cannot endure inactivity, but it will be satisfied with mere 
occupation without exertion; though it is exertion alone 
that will convert students into men. This is a prominent 
aim of our system of culture. The studies are such that 
while they require the exercise of memory, they require the 
exercise of thought, analysis, comparison, invention, combi- 
nation, patience, will. 

It is at this point that the sifting process takes place in 
college classes. For a time all rejoice in a college course, 
and suspect no difficulties. Presently there occur points to 



22 THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 

be worked out by patient continuance in effort. All could 
apply themselves vigorously enough for a few times, and 
thus bid fair to be successful. But at length a part of them 
tire of that continuance. Their relish for the exercise is 
gone. Its novelty is gone. The first impulse has died away, 
and with it all the early promise of success. A term or two 
more, and that portion of a class is found to diminish in 
numbers. Various reasons induce them to change their 
plans, and but few of them are likely to rally their powers 
and take their places again as competitors for literary dis- 
tinction. 

The other portion of the class are equally annoyed with 
the steady ivork, where they had looked for play. They do, 
nevertheless, put their minds to the task. The work of each 
hour they do, though it be irksome. If their feelings recoil 
from it, they summon will enough to-day, to accomplish the 
work of to-clay. The open air, or some interesting book 
or a leisure companion solicits their attention, but they have 
power of purpose just enough to seat themselves at their 
tables, to waive the solicitation from them, to bid their un- 
willing minds apply themselves to their allotted duties, and 
to find the necessary occupation of mind alone, instead of 
depending for it, on extraneous objects or social companions. 

This is discipline. That which was at first irksome ceases 
to be so. The other powers of the mind learn subjection 
and become the efficient instruments of a vigorous will. A 
man, thus disciplined, is no longer subject to "the tyranny of 



THE COLLEGIATE ST STEM. 26 

caprice. He has self-command. He is the energetic worker 
in the carrying ont of high purposes. 

We do not claim that the college alone furnishes this dis- 
cipline. It may come through similar struggles in the 
counting-room, or the workshop, or from the friction of 
rough contact with the world. But the college furnishes 
the means of this discipline more abundantly, adjusts them 
with greater care to the ability which has already been ac- 
quired, increases the complexity of difficulty as ability to 
grapple with it increases, and graduates the assistance fur- 
nished to individual necessities. Development in college 
is, therefore, more sure and more rapid than it can be else- 
where. 

It is also more likely to be the development of the whole 
man, of all his powers, than it can be when acquired in the 
pursuits of active life. The college course has been carefully 
arranged with reference to such development. It encou- 
rages habits of observation and discrimination. It compels 
the student to reason, and to think consecutively. It turns 
the mind to the scrutiny of its own operations, and teaches 
it to rely on its own powers, and its judgments, whether lo- 
gical, moral or aesthetic. And thus it reaches our whole in- 
tellectual, sensitive, moral and religious nature. 

To effect such results, the student is guided along the 
paths of the high mental effort of all ages. He has logic 
and the exact sciences which were so far perfected in former 
times that but little has been left for modern skill and 



24 THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 

thought to accomplish ; he has the history of man as a social 
being, and as an individual; he has the highest conceptions 
of the beautiful, in art and thought, which the mind has 
ever attained; and such conceptions of the Divine as un- 
aided human nature can attain. Then he threads the la- 
byrinths through which it has pleased God to lead man in 
reaching his present knowledge of his own mental constitu- 
tion. Then he passes to the more immediately practical 
forms of mental activity of later times in physical science 
and the methods of material growth and greatness. 

It is a credit to our Collegiate System that it has so care- 
fully excluded all professional culture. It aims only at 
that culture which every man should receive, that which 
precedes all that is professional, that which the truly profes- 
sional culture must presuppose, and upon which all profes- 
sional schools will insist as rapidly as the demands of so- 
ciety upon their pupils will allow them. It is well that 
our colleges have excluded professional culture, because 
the tendency is almost irrepressible in young men to hasten 
forward from their preliminary studies, to dip into that upon 
which they are to devote their energies in subsequent life. 
The danger is that broad foundations will not be laid. This 
danger is guarded against, as far as possible, by transferring 
to the professional school all that is strictly professional, and 
aiming only at that which is essentially prerequisite to high 
professional effort ; and which is also appropriate and valua- 
ble for all men, not those alone who are in professional life, 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 25 

but for men of literature or of investigation, men of leisure 
or of business. 

Thus it is that the college is the bond of connexion be- 
tween all professions and pursuits. It is the common ground 
of all cultivated men. Professional culture has its claims 
and power. Sameness of pursuit creates the feeling of bro- 
therhood, and to a certain extent separates men into classes. 
But the evils of this segregation are obviated by another, 
earlier, more fundamental culture, which is common to all, 
and which has its principal centre and source in college life. 
It is here that culture ordinarily commences. There has 
been mental effort in the primary and preparatory school. 
The power to acquire has been improved, and considerable 
acquirement actually made. But the power to think and 
to express thought is but feebly developed. Acquaintance 
with one's self, with the nature of mind, the power of con- 
trolling mind, the exercise of judgment, the weighing of ar- 
guments, the balancing of opinions, the full waking up to 
what one is, and what one may be, all these are ordinarily 
first experienced in college. The aesthetic principles also lie 
nearly dormant till some progress is made in college. The 
opening of the mind to the appreciation of elegance or rich- 
ness of thought, or grandeur of conception, or beauty of ex- 
pression, does not reach anything like completeness till a 
large proportion of the college life is passed, but it is not 
deferred through the whole course. Sooner or later these 
emotions are awakened in the student. This is the passage 



26 THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 

to the manhood of aaaa. If there are then no scintillations of 
genius, there never will be. If there is no capacity for thought 
then, there never will be. If then there are no high pur- 
poses, look not for them afterwards. If there is then no 
genialness of temper, or nobleness of character, nothing of 
the generous, the chivalrous, we need scarcely expect them 
in later life. But in a large majority of cases these manly 
virtues and appreciative powers do take their principal de- 
velopment in college, and they are then the fair index of 
the man in all his after years. This culture is never laid 
aside. It is the indelible impress which professional studies 
and pursuits, the rough experience of the world, and the 
softer influences of love, and home, and family, will never 
obliterate. 

Such is the common ground upon which you meet to-day. 
For the time, your professions are forgotten. You come 
together, not as separate fraternities, not as the members 
of any one profession, nor as professional men at all, but 
as scholars; not specially as the alumni of this college, 
but as men of culture wherever obtained, as men who have 
common sympathies because you have received like mental 
discipline. This sameness of discipline comes from the 
common character of our widely extended educational sys- 
tem. You are not drawn together by a common nature, 
but by a common elaboration of that nature, an elaboration 
due mainly to the literary institutions of our land. These 
institutions are the common unit of the nation ; the source 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 27 

of the common power and the common feeling; the means 
of uniting into one fraternity the clear thought, the true 
science, the pure literature, the genuine humanity, the cul- 
ture, the life in fine, of a common country. 

II. Nor is this influence to be ascribed wholly to the cul- 
ture, but partly also to the instruction, which the college fur- 
nishes. Its value and the influence which it has, is due 
very much to its breadth, to the wide range of knowledge 
to which it extends. I have no disposition to propose any 
classification of knowledge farther than to show the com- 
prehensiveness of the collegiate system of instruction. It 
includes 

(I.) Those sciences which depend on axiomatic truths, 
that is, the pure mathematics. 

(II.) Those sciences which depend primarily on the ob- 
servation of phenomena. 

These latter sciences have reference either to the Creator 
or to that which he has created, that is, to natural religion 
or to natural science. 

Natural science, that is the science of the created uni- 
verse, includes — (1.) The science of mind, its nature, 
powers and duties. This would embrace intellectual and 
moral science and logic; and we should not deviate much 
from a just arrangement to include under this head the 
history of the race, the sciences of government and of 
wealth, and the study of language. 

Natural science includes — (2.) The science of the mate- 



28 THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 

rial world. This material world in its organic forms pos- 
sesses vitality alone, or vitality and sensation, and gives rise 
to the sciences of vegetable life and of animal life. The 
inorganic world, regarded as elementary particles, is che- 
mistry; as masses, it is geology; as masses possessing cer- 
tain powers, it is natural philosophy ; as masses composing 
distinct bodies in space, it is Astronomy. 

(III.) There is a third, and the only other conceivable 
source of knowledge, which is revelation, and the proofs of 
it are a part of general science. 

Such is, in outline, the college course. What is there 
for us to know except it be of that which exists by neces- 
sity, or of that which exists by creation, or of that which we 
could not of ourselves know, but which has been taught us 
by some being superior to us 1 

It is too true that in college we only enter the vestibule 
of the great structure of even present and' human know- 
ledge. And this accumulation of knowledge is constantly 
augmenting. It may therefore at first be thought that the 
instruction of the college is every year embracing a less 
proportion of the total amount. But this we are by no 
means disposed to allow. Knowledge becomes simplified 
as it becomes extended. " The classifications both of things 
and facts with which the infant faculties of each successive 
race are conversant, are more just and more comprehensive 
than those of their predecessors ; which, in one age were 
confined to the studious and enlightened few, becoming in 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 29 



the next, the established creed of the learned, and in the 
third, forming part of the elementary principles of educa- 
tion. Indeed among those who enjoy the advantages of 
early instruction, some of the most remote and wonderful 
conclusions of the human intellect are, even in infancy, as 
completely familiarized to the mind as the most obvious 
phenomena which the material world exhibits to their 
senses." 

" Observe how, at each epoch, genius outstrips the pre- 
sent age, and how it is overtaken by mediocrity in the next, 
and we shall perceive that nature has furnished us with the 
means of abridging and facilitating our intellectual labor, 
and that there is no reason for apprehending that such sim- 
plifications can ever have an end. We shall perceive that 
at the moment when a number of particular solutions and 
of insulated facts begin to distract the attention and to over- 
charge the memory, the former gradually lose themselves 
in one general method, and the latter unite in one general 
law, and that these generalizations continually succeeding 
one to another, have no other limit than that infinity which 
the human faculties are unable to comprehend." 

" If these remarks be just, they open an unbounded pros- 
pect of intellectual improvement to future ages ; as they 
point out a provision made by nature to facilitate and 
abridge, more and more, the process of study, in proportion 
as the truths to be acquired increase in number."* 

* Steward's Intellectual Powers. 



30 THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 

Thus it may be doubted whether the boundaries and 
amount of knowledge have extended more rapidly than the 
facilities for acquiring knowledge. A thorough education, 
embracing a condensed, elementary, but clear idea of all of 
the leading departments of human attainment, is probably 
as fully within the reach of assiduous effort on the part of 
youth now, notwithstanding the astonishing progress in mo- 
dern times, as such an education was in the earliest culti- 
vated nations. 

Such is the kind of education, regarded as a system of 
instruction, which the college aims to furnish. Its exten- 
sion is desirable, and so is perfection in many other things, 
though it may not be at once practicable. A collegiate sys- 
tem, to be the most useful, must be only so far in advance 
of the general public opinion as to lead it, and not so far 
in advance as to be out of sight. All colleges have to con- 
tend with the urgency which young men feel to be engaged 
in active life; and the demand for their services is such 
that they cannot ordinarily be retained in a course of ele- 
mentary studies longer than our present course contem- 
plates. But restricted as it is, its compass is such as to give 
to the student, at his graduation, a completeness of know- 
ledge which leaves fewer things to be supplied than any 
other course that occupies the same time, and which has 
been uniformly regarded as the best attainable preparation 
for subsequent literary eminence or professional distinction. 

III. If such are the results of the collegiate system, I need 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 



scarcely consider the third point which I proposed, its ca- 
pability of reaching, so far, the great body of our population, 
as that its culture and instruction shall work out this unity 
and homogeneous development of the general mind. 

One of the encouragements to expect the general diffu- 
sion of this culture and instruction among the people, at 
least so far as to have a preponderating influence, is found 
in the low price of collegiate education among us. Our 
colleges are all to a great extent eleemosynary institutions. 
The price of collegiate instruction is not more than half of 
the actual cost. The remaining half is paid either by con- 
tinuous contributions ; or, more generally, by large invest- 
ments in the way of buildings, apparatus and library, or by 
the interest of invested cash funds. 

Such has been the appreciation of the importance of our 
higher educational system, that men have been found in 
all parts of our country who are ready to contribute largely 
towards these investments. And I know of no form in 
which beneficence has been more satisfactorily put forth. 
The people of this State have not been remiss in this duty, 
or at least they have done a noble work. I trust that I 
shall be excused for some expression of exultation at what 
has, in this respect, been accomplished here. You have 
carried on to completion this noble edifice. You have not 
moved hastily, but as men of financial skill and financial 
honor; and having completed the several structures required 
by this University, you are as a corporate body this day 



32 THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 

beyond embarrassment. You have also funds safely invested 
which, though insufficient to constitute an ultimate reliance, 
are yet, considering the shortness of your corporate exist- 
ence, an instance of almost unexampled success. 

I know that these few years have not been without their 
periods of solicitude and trial and discouragement. I know 
somewhat of the heavy responsibilities which some of you 
have assumed, of the time which you have given to this en- 
terprise, of the largeness of your contributions when much, 
that is now realized, existed only in expectation. Those 
were days of beginnings. Your work is so far accomplished 
that such demands and straggles cannot again occur. 

Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees, permit me thus pub- 
licly to congratulate you upon your success. 

Permit me also to be your organ in extending congratu- 
lations to that portion of this community and a wider pub- 
lic who have aided, and who therefore participate, in this 
success. 

This is a digression, but it has served to show how it is, 
that education is offered at half its actual cost. These large 
contributions of liberal and far-seeing men are really a tariff 
in favor of education. They keep down the price below 
cost in order to induce those who would otherwise be de- 
barred from education, to make the efforts and sacrifices ne- 
cessary to attain it. Very few are therefore shut out from 
these advantages if they earnestly desire them. And such 
a proportion of young men do desire them and secure them 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM 



as to diffuse widely through the community, knowledge, 
culture, a spirit of inquiry, and particularly, an interest in 
regard to education which could never be secured except 
through the influence, direct, or indirect of the college. 

Another encouragement to expect the result referred to, 
is found in the number of American colleges. They are so 
numerous as to have become characteristic of the United 
States. It has been looked upon as one of our reproaches 
that we cannot centralize, that we can be interested only 
in that which is near us, and hence that we have not and 
are not likely to have a small number of those great literary 
institutions, by which the more advanced European coun- 
tries are distinguished. We are willing to admit the state- 
ment as a truth, and do not regret it. These large gather- 
ings of students have not been found promotive of indivi- 
dual effort and sound scholarship. The high purposes to 
be gained will be better subserved by institutions more nu- 
merous, though less thronged with members, and of a more 
local character. 

The local character of our institutions is that which we 
specially prize. In the European Universities the students 
have corporate and political rights and immunities as stu- 
dents. The multiplicity and local character of our colleges 
has prevented any such separation of students from other 
citizens. It has identified our graduates with the people, 
and prevented them from losing their citizen character and 
acquiring an exclusive and repulsive clannishness. 
3 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 



The multiplication of colleges promotes college morality. 
If the vicious sometimes gain admission to them it is im- 
possible for them so to congregate as to defy public opinion 
and strengthen bad purposes by numbers. It is greatly 
owing to this, that manliness instead of villany has come to 
be the prevailing student character. 

Our colleges, by their local character, present precisely 
the stimulus to that kind of effort which is necessary to 
bring the largest possible proportion of our young men to 
receive their advantages. The college is not so far from 
them as to appear to their minds inaccessible. They enjoy 
the occasional society of other young men who have been 
entered as college students. They mingle in our occasional 
festivities, imbibe something of youthful literary aspiration, 
learn the conditions of admission, indulge, first, the half- 
formed wish to become students themselves, then the hope, 
then form the well-digested plan. By this time half of the 
difficulties have been overcome. The execution is easier 
than the full formation of the purpose. 

But there is more of incitement thus furnished than comes 
from these incidental associations. A young man with some 
activity of mind, but with limited opportunities, compares 
himself with one who, a few years ago, was in no respect his 
superior in attainments, but who has since applied himself 
to study. He is shrewd enough to see that he is falling 
into the background, not perhaps in social position, but in 
intelligence, in clearness and compass of mind, in power 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. oO 

over other associates, in acquaintance with the sources of 
knowledge and rational enjoyment; and he has sagacity 
enough to divine the cause, and firmness of will enough to 
apply himself to retrieve his lost position. This would not 
be mere matter of emulation, but of sound judgment brought 
into exercise by the opportunity of comparison. It is this 
opportunity of comparison, furnished more or less directly 
to all of the young men in our country by the multiplication 
of colleges, that furnishes one of the strong incentives to 
young men to enter, themselves, upon literary pursuits. 

There is another feature of our American colleges which 
has tended to connect them intimately with all the people. 
It is their denominational character. All denominations 
have their colleges. And I know not that any evils have 
resulted from this. Students of all diversities of religious 
views are found in all our colleges, and their relations are 
not such as to occasion them any inconvenience. And yet 
each denomination has special interest in its own colleges; 
and it is this interest that has brought out from the pur- 
suits of simple labor a large number of young men, and put 
them into a course of literary training. 

It has been objected to this multiplication of colleges 
that it is a heavy tax on the community, both in the num- 
ber of men employed as teachers, and in the cost of build- 
ings and apparatus. The business of instruction has not 
thus fir claimed more of the numbers or the talent of the 
educated portion of the community than it should. The 



36 THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 

larger institutions must multiply the number of teachers 
with nearly the same rapidity, compared with the increase 
of pupils, that would be necessary to accommodate the same 
increase of pupils by establishing new colleges. In most of 
the appropriate labor of instruction small classes alone can 
be well taught. 

Nor is the increased expenditure in the erection of build- 
ings to be taken into account. The cost of edifices is nearly 
in proportion to the numbers which it is proposed that they 
shall accommodate. The cost of library and apparatus is, 
however, as great for a small number as for a large one ; and 
viewed in that light alone a considerable additional expen- 
diture is incurred in the attempt to furnish equal facili- 
ties for education in local colleges. 

But this additional expenditure is more than refunded by 
the additional value given to property by the proximity of 
a college. If any one will attempt an accurate estimate of 
the increase in the value of property in any community by the 
establishment of Literary Institutions * in it* he will easily 
convince himself that it is fully equal to the entire expen- 
diture. And, indeed, large outlays of the kind have often 
been made by far-seeing men as simple investments. 

Considered then simply as a pecuniary question, and with- 
out estimating any of its remote advantages, the heavy pe- 
cuniary outlay of establishing local colleges is not a tax upon 
the community. Regarded as a question of Political Eco- 
nomy, it is capital profitably invested. 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 37 

But it was not so much our object to defend them as pe- 
cuniary expenditures, as to point out the advantages arising 
from their tendency to diffuse widely the influence of know- 
ledge, and thus become permanently a bond of union among 
the people. It is through the influence of colleges that 
talent is sought out, that encouragement is given, that ob- 
stacles to education are removed, that prejudices are over- 
come, that high purposes are formed, and the needful stimu- 
lus applied to quicken resolution into action. 

And thus it has come to pass that our men of influence 
are educated men. To a very considerable extent the men 
of leisure and of wealth are educated men. Education has 
become a high source of power ; and this power is in a great 
measure one, and its influence is in one direction. There 
will always be diversities of opinion, and with us there will 
always be freedom in the expression of opinion. But the 
tendency will be to harmony when the culture is alike. 
Peculiarities of temperament or condition may sometimes 
warp the judgment of the men of largest culture. But as 
a general thing the really "crooked sticks" in society will be 
found to be those which have never been trimmed and 
straightened. The mulish, the always antagonistic, the im- 
practicables in society, are generally the least informed. 
Such men may be found among the thinkers, but they do not 
originate the movements nor control the progress in society. 
The master minds are the educated minds. We by no means 
say that they have been educated in a college. But they 



38 THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 

have been disciplined. They have become thinkers, and it 
is the power of thinking that makes the men, and gives them 
influence. And it is admitted by all that the college is the 
best school for this training. If some have reached the 
goal by other means, it is because they had superior force 
and penetration of character, and were capable of accomplish- 
ing more than most men are. 

I will attempt no estimate of the influence of the men in 
the Professions, in the Legislative Halls, in the departments 
of Authorship and the periodical Press, in the chairs of In- 
struction, and those who are prosecuting investigations in 
science and the arts. But you will all feel that without them 
society would be dissolved. And yet they are all without 
one honorable exception men of education, and men whose 
education, whenever and wherever gotten, has the spirit and 
partakes largely of the character of that given in the college. 
We go farther, and say that these men have an education 
which is homogeneous with that of the college, which, though 
not always obtained in college halls, had its origin and pro- 
mulgation thence. 

Nor is the system of American Collegiate Instruction uli- 
felt in the pride of American Institutions, our common 
schools. I will not now go into this question. But if men 
of collegiate training were not the authors of our school- 
books, the devisers and upholders of the school system in 
our Legislatures, and the favorers of it in all our towns and 
boroughs, you would see it degenerate, lose efficiency and 



THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 39 

favor, and finally slough off from our social organization and 
be no more. 

1 will no longer claim your attention. It has I think been 
made evident that the culture of the college is needed as 
the means of properly guiding our youth, that its instruc- 
tion embraces the most complete system of knowledge con- 
sistent with our present restless character, and that therefore 
both the culture and the instruction are adapted to our con- 
dition, to our present state of advancement. The college 
is, therefore, an important part of our social fabric. It is 
that which gives it unity. It is inwrought into all that has 
contributed to our progress and that constitutes our great- 
ness. I do not claim for it more than is due to other parts 
of the fabric, but only that it is an indispensably important 
part. And as such, I may claim for it the kindly and gene- 
rous sympathy of every patriot and friend of humanity in our 
land. 

The power of our educational system has not reached its 
culmination. I anticipate the time when the love of know- 
ledge, as it arises in the minds of our ardent youth, shall 
not fail of being gratified, when all who desire to be edu- 
cated may become so, when ignorance shall be banished and 
prejudice against education shall cease. It is not too much 
to believe that the Author of mind, the Being who made 
it capable of improvement and gave it aspirations after know- 
ledge, intended that in the course of human changes, the 
family of man, as a race, as a world, should come to possess 



40 THE COLLEGIATE SYSTEM. 

and improve the facilities for acquiring knowledge. There 
would thus cease to be an educated class, for all would be 
educated. If there are other distinctions, that of education 
will not exist. The Professions and Commerce and the Me- 
chanic arts and Agriculture may continue, there may be 
distinctions of wealth, there may be distinctions of station, 
while the men of all pursuits and all stations shall be edu- 
cated men, shall possess largeness of views, grasp of know- 
ledge and power of thought, a genial culture, and an interest 
in all that is lovely and elevating and inspiriting in litera- 
ture, in nature and in art. Thus amid all diversities of in- 
terest and pursuit and mental endowment, there shall be no 
antagonism of views, all shall see eye to eye, and the bro- 
therhood of humanity will be realized. 



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